Passing on another no knead bread that is even faster and less work than JLs recipe. You wind up with a buttery round loaf that is perfect for a meal, a gift, for sandwiches and cheese plates.
Simple, no fuss ingredients with plenty of riffs. You wind up with two small loaves.
Hit up the blog page because she offers a variety of suggestions for baking off the dough in various ways. Even creating just one loaf in a big oven proof pot or bowl would work. I have glass, ceramic and a dutch oven to use and they all work well. The shape is up to you.
I did read that a focaccia loaf can be made from this same dough, dimpled with your fingers and made in a lipped baking sheet so a bit of baking time tweaking and your squares pans could work.
If you have a loaf pan or a Dutch oven or saucepan even - some other oven-safe deep-ish receptacle - the shape will work better for bread. In an 8x8 pan you’ll get a flatter, foccacia-style bread.
Thats where I started with JL and while I did enjoy the crusty outer layer the time involved is not as useful to me lately as this is. Toasted this version is perfect and having two smaller loaves in 3 hrs is actually more to my liking.
I hope to riff next week with some garden herbs and cheese.
Agree on smaller loaves - I have to halve all these recipes!
I don’t love the really-thick crust via the JL method unless it’s being eaten in a day, because it gets tough after that, though tweaking covered/uncovered time fixed that.
To be honest the photos of the bread, crumb and crust, don’t look great. We make 5-Minute-a-Day BreD quite regular (but currently reading through Modernist Bread to up the Bread game a few notches) and it gives a much better crumb and crust. In addition, storing/riping the bread at least overnight gives it a much better flavour
Have you tried this method or is a photo your only introduction? I was quite happy with the results. I have never tried the method you mentioned. Do you have a weblink?
I take that back I do recall the couple that developed this bread method. I remember the broiler pan and cornmeal requirements suggested in the recipe. I just read a third party site that jogged my brain.
Baked off two rounds today. One with fresh rosemary and the other with roasted garlic and dried basil. The aroma was wonderful and warm with Italian butter so comforting. Next time Im going to try cinnamon bread with the recipe.
I used a modified version of this recipe to teach 13yo niece to bake bread.
Her proportions but sort-of Lahey’s baking method to get a crusty loaf rather than a soft sandwich-y one.
2c flour, 1 tsp each yeast, sugar, salt, and 1c water. First rise 1h, second rise 30 mins in dutch oven. Baked covered at 450 for 30 mins, and uncovered for another 20 mins.
Loaf was flatter / ciabatta-like because of the small oval pot available. Tasted delicious, lovely crumb, and crusty but not tough.